Things You Didn't Know
by worddancer
Summary: Themes that the show didn't explore or my take on some of the things they did. better to read it and give it a try so please read and review.
1. Ziva

**a/n so I love Ziva and this was in my head for awhile so I wrote it. I might continue and do the same thing for all of the other NCIS folks. That really depends on what people say about this. If people comment and say hey you should do Tony or Abby or anyone than I'll continue... or if an idea pops in my head for one of them so please let me know what you think. any additions will be added in this format. ten themes that connect somehow and all additions will tie in with the others somehow at some point. so read and review! **

1) When she was eight she had her first dance recital. Her father promised he'd be there. She even had her dance teacher, a French lady named Mademoiselle Nicolette save two seats for her parents. Her mother came late. After Ziva had danced her solo that she worked so hard to make perfect. Her father didn't come at all. Even though he promised. Ziva felt a strange emotion rise in her. Anger. Of course she had been angry at someone before but never at her father. She idolized her father. He was strong, a rock. He would keep her and her family safe. But now for the first time he disappointed her and she realized that he was just a man. He wasn't a hero from the books Ari liked to read to her. He was a man. So she forgave him for missing the recital. After all there would be another one in two months.

She forgave her father the first, second, third and even tenth time he missed one of her recitals. He missed all of them but she still forgave him, she gave him the excuses he never bothered to make for himself. He was busy, his job was very important, he was keeping Israel safe. He didn't make the excuses for himself so she did for him. Because he was her rock, he would keep them safe, even if he was just a man. Besides he was her father and isn't that what you did for family?

When she was thirteen she got the lead role in Swan Lake at her dance school. She ran to her father's office when she came home, still in her leotard and hair bun, to tell him. He sat behind his great desk reading reports. Ziva started to tell him about it. Before she even got three sentences out he cut her off. He told her that her dance wasn't important and he had things to do and could she go find someone else to bother?

She started to hate her father that day. Soon she convinced herself she didn't love him or care anymore. After all if she didn't care, he couldn't hurt her. She preformed Swan Lake perfectly. After the final performance she apologized to Mademoiselle, telling her that she couldn't dance anymore. She walked out of the theater, leaving her dance shoes behind. After all if she didn't dance she didn't need to make excuses for missed recitals. That day was when Ziva began to make her heart cold to her father. For years she believed she no longer loved him, respected him as her director? Yes. Feared him and his power? Yes. But love him? No. It wouldn't be until she was trapped in a terrorist camp in the middle of the dessert that she realized that after all he had done to her she still loved her father. Because if she didn't love him, didn't care about him, the fact that he never looked for her, had turned her in to the person she was, wouldn't be able to hurt her so much.

2) Ziva was fifteen when she fell in love for the first time. His name was Adar. He was four years her senior and knew how to woo a girl. He told her pretty things and made her laugh. He stole quiet kisses but treated her with respect. After six months together she let him start to touch her. Chaste kisses became hungry, gentle caresses turned to the easing off of cloths. She lost her virginity and her innocence in one night of passion and cries. Two months later and a missed period she stared at a little pink line on a pregnancy test her brother had smuggled her. She couldn't tell her father; although a part of her thought he might already know. She told Adar the next day. He told her to do the smart thing and get rid of it. He broke her heart that day. Ari took her to a doctor when she visited him the next month. She didn't want to do it. The very idea of an abortion terrified her, but she knew she had no choice.

That day after the doctor finished his procedure, cleansing her body, riding it of the tiny life inside her she went in to the bathroom of the clinic. It was dirty and smelled of things she didn't want to name. She stared in the mirror at her tear streaked face, her hair hanging limp around her cheeks, sticky with sweat. She sat on the toilet and looked in between her thighs and noticed a small blood smear that hadn't been washed away. Sitting in that bathroom she hated herself, but even more she hated Adar. It was then she decided she would never love a man again. She would take them as lovers, bargain with her body, and satisfy her needs. But she would never love a man in that way again. That day she hardened her heart even more.

3) Ziva was nineteen, just starting her military service when tragedy struck her life again. Her beautiful sister Tali was killed. Sitting in a small café they used to go to together after school. A bomb by Hamas. When Ziva was told the news it broke her. She cried for the first time sense that day in the clinic, falling to the floor unable to move from the sobs that over took her body. Shaking her until she thought she would fall apart from the force of her cries. She went home for the funeral wanting nothing more than to run into her mother's arms and be comforted. She was even willing to finally forgive her father for all he did to her if he would just hold her for a minute and let her be the scared girl, caught between womanhood and her fading childhood, she was. But her mother only talked of plans and arrangements and her father of retaliation and revenge. Tali had been the last good thing in their sham of a family. Ziva didn't know how to ask for the love she craved from her mother and father. So she listened as her mother explained why she was moving to Russia, how she could no longer stand the sight of her husband, whom she hadn't shared a bed with in the last five years. She listened and agreed with her father when he said she would join Mossad when she finished her military obligation. She nodded dumbly. It was then she hardened her heart against her family because they would always disappoint. She also hardened her heart against humanity, because in this cruel world what good could caring do?

She threw herself into her training, striving to become the best. Maybe a small part of her was trying to earn her father's love. Maybe she was trying to make amends for Tali by making sure the people who killed her paid. She didn't know and she didn't ask. She had many lovers who warmed her bed for a little while. Many of them gave her words of love that she parroted back. But in the end none of them stayed.

4) Ari was the only person she still allowed herself to feel anything for. Her big brother. He stood by her, had her back. She followed him into Mossad and worked beside him. Then she met Jenny Sheppard in France. The much older passionate red head warmed her heart a bit. They became friends. Working side by side on a mission in Paris. They saved each other's lives countless times. Jenny made Ziva think that maybe, just maybe there were good people in this world. She still didn't love anyone. Love only hurt you. Ziva tried to convince herself that people could be liked and their company enjoyed but to love them was for fools. She laughed at Jenny's stories of another agent with whom she shared a time in Paris with, in younger years, secretly she was jealous. Jealous of the love Jenny had even if it had been fleeting. At least her American friend could look on the time and smile. Ziva was jealous of the sense of family Jenny spoke of. She wished her family was different. But life didn't give you wishes and Ziva stayed cold. It was safer than risking hope for a different way.

5) Killing Ari nearly killed the last bit of humanity in her. But then Jenny asked her to become the Mossad laison for NCIS. Then Gibbs became the father she never had and gave her the love she never really thought she deserved. MeGee became something like an older brother, a rather, what's the word Tony used- geeky- older brother. He was a tad bit afraid of her but he always had her back if she needed it. Ducky became a trusted and valued confidante. Abby, once she warmed up to Ziva, reminded her in so many ways of Tali. They both loved life and just seemed to breathe energy and happiness. And then there was Tony. Ziva never really knew what to think of Tony. He became a close friend. They flirted and casually bantered as if they had done nothing different their whole lives. Even though they were both adults with healthy sex lives they never crossed that line. It came close when they posed as hired killers but they held back. If anyone asked them why they would both have said rule 12. But it wasn't a real reason. Everyone knew rule twelve could be easily broken by anyone, including Gibbs. Abby and MeGee had faithfully broken the rule off and on for years. Tony and Ziva had movie nights, would end up sitting to close together on the couch while sharing a bowl of popcorn. She had a drawer of her things in his guest bedroom and he in hers. But it never went farther. Other men and women came and went in their lives but never managed to reach the closeness the two of them had reached without sex. The new family Ziva found warmed her heart faster than she thought possible. She still divided her life though. Her American life where her heart was warmer, where she was still a deadly ninja but one who had love. Then she had her Mossad life. Where she was Ziva David; cold and deadly, the director's daughter. Then came Somalia and her two worlds collided.

6) Ziva never loved Michael. When Tony killed him she cried for him but she didn't love him. She knew he didn't love her so she felt no guilt for that. She cried mostly because she feared Tony killed him in cold blood, like Michael would have killed Tony if he thought he had to. And she just couldn't accept that Tony was capable of something like that. Because if he was, all the warmth she gained, all the tiny bits of trust she found in humanity again would be nothing but lies. And she couldn't let that happen. So she stayed in Israel, because that world was black and white. Cold and unforgiving. Because in Israel she would never have to find the answer she feared. That Tony killed Michael in cold blood.

7) Ziva really didn't feel anything for the people she killed when she was in Mossad. At least not at first. After all she was already so cold to the world from her own pain how could she add any more hurt to her heart? Once she let her heart thaw she still didn't feel anything, that was her Israel life, separate from her new life in America. It wasn't until she was sitting in a terrorist camp in Somalia did she really begin to think of everything she had done. All the people she had hurt or killed. Before she had always been able to block those feelings out. Make excuses, I was serving my country; they would have done the same thing to my people. Sitting alone in a terrorist camp waiting to die or be tortured again she began to think. Look past all the excuses she made for herself. She hated her father for what he let her be turned into, what he himself turned her into. But even more than that she hated herself for allowing herself to become what she had become. It was then she thought she deserved to die.

8) But even thought she thought she deserved to die didn't mean she wanted to. But it was so so hard to fight when she knew she deserved everything they did to her and when she knew no one was looking for her. That's why when Salim revealed Tony's face she thought it was nothing more than a pain driven hallucination. Because Tony and MeGee could not be there. Not in her private hell. It was hers to suffer alone. And if they were there where was Gibbs? He would never let the two of them go off on their own. So when she asked him why was he there she didn't expect an answer. If this was a hallucination brought on by her personal hell he wouldn't answer, he would just stare at her with his goofy little boy grin not saying a word. When he did answer her, saying he guessed he just couldn't live without her she didn't believe him. He was just a hallucination but at least she could talk to him. Say some of the things she wanted to say. She firmly believed that her team coming to rescue her was merely a sure sign that she had finally lost it. She didn't accept the truth until they were on a plane flying back to the states that she let herself believe and feel relieved. When that happened she let herself collapse, one hand firmly held by Gibbs, the other by Megee sitting right across from them in the small cargo plane with her head resting on Tony's shoulder. She let herself believe as she slid into oblivion that maybe, just maybe things were going to be all right.

9) For the first six months after they rescued her she lived with Tony. In his guest bedroom. The night they got home from the desert no one even discussed it. Tony gathered her into his arm and gently set her in his car. He drove to his apartment where he carried her to the elevator and up to his floor. He asked her if she wanted to take a shower, her first in months. She dumbly nodded yes. So he carried her to the bathroom gently stripped her down to her sweaty sports bra and practical cotton underwear. He laid her in the shower and turned on the hot water. He gently scrubbed her body, being extra careful around the cuts and bruises that covered her body. She saw his face harden in anger at the sight of them, at the sight of how her skin seemed to barely cling to her bones and for a moment she felt glad for their sakes that the men who had done that to her were already dead. After she was as clean as she would be able to get until Ducky saw her the next day Tony lifted her out of the shower and stood her on the soft yellow bathroom rug. He then patted her dry with a towel before helping her into the guest bedroom where he still had her second favorite nightgown. She always had worn feminine night cloths to remind herself that even after everything she was still a woman. He helped her dress and crawl into the large queen size bed. He made sure she was asleep and went and grabbed a chair. He sat there all night. For the next six month he helped her heal. Some nights she could make it alone. Other nights the nightmares would wake her up screaming and he would come in and crawl next to her, holding her if that's what she needed or just being there that was all that would help. Slowly the nightmares became less and after six months she felt the need to be Ziva again. Strong and independent. So she moved out. Found her own place. Even than for the first month she lived alone she would call Tony a couple times a week and he would come over, or she would show up at Gibbs' and they would have a glass of bourbon and she would sleep there for the night. But slowly she started to heal.

10) Ziva avoided Tony romantically for many reasons. At first it was because she was still too cold for the warm loving man. Than it was his undercover assignment and its aftermath. After Somalia it was because she needed to figure out how to be Ziva again. But finally after working together for almost seven years they both stopped avoiding what could happen between them and gave themselves a chance. Gibbs told them to keep it out of the office and Abby collected fifty bucks from each MeGee and various other members of the NCIS office. They should have known better, nobody wins a bet on Abby. But some people never learn because she collected again a year and half later when Tony proposed to her in the middle of an argument they were having at a crime scene and again when a year later they announced that Ziva was pregnant again in the middle of a crime scene. Both times Gibbs kissed Ziva's cheek and head slapped Tony. MeGee and Abby were named god-parents. The married pair thought about naming their child Tali Jennifer DiNozzo but both decided that a child should have its own name so the expectations of the dead didn't weigh down its life. They named her Nadia meaning hope. When they had a son a few years later they named him Nicolas or Nico. Ziva loved her husband, her children and her new life. Her children never lacked for love and although her daughter could break a grown man's hand with ease and her son got sent home from school for breaking a bully's nose when he saw the bully teasing a little girl they were happy. Her children had Grandpa Gibbs and Grandpa Ducky, Aunt Abby and Uncle Timmy eventually they even had cousins. They were a happy family. And that is all that matters.


	2. coming home

**so even though no ones showed much interest in this it still nestled in my mind so i decided to continue it. after all i write for myself not others. this is a continuation of the first slot. I'm almost done with Tony's ten things but i felt this should be put first. enjoy and feel free to comment with senerios you'd like to see Thanks!**

Ziva David quietly turned off the hot shower. For a moment she stood perfectly still listening to the silent apartment. She could feel in the stillness that she was alone. Stepping from shower to the soft rug on the bathroom floor she turned to the large mirror above the sink and stared at her body. Her right breast bore a long slashing scar an inch below her brown nipple. The jagged line started at the slight top curve of her left breast, right were the top of her bra sat and continued across her chest, over her right side and down under her arm pit. She turned her profile to face the left side of her torso. Here another wicked line, drawn by a steel blade, showed. This one cut its path from her hip, where the joint met the socket, up to the bottom of her rib cage and snaked around to end at her belly button. She continued her slow circle, counting her marks. On her back another evil, raised and jagged line started at her shoulder blade and continued to her opposite hip bone in a lightning pattern. Her right torso bared only the mark from the cut on her breast. Countless other small scars littered her body. Some started to fade. The ones she received in her first days of capture, before the beatings became harsher, before she lost the will to live. She traced the puckered lines that those men drew into her flesh. She looked at her legs and saw even more scars on her thighs, outside and inside, and on her calves. Surprisingly her arms and face showed the least amount of damage. She assumed such a small canvas posed no challenge to her sadistic captors.

She chose this moment to look at herself for a certain reason. Tony left for the store a bit ago, alone in the apartment she felt it safe to study herself. She avoided mirrors ever sense her return three months ago. Instead of undressing and dressing in the main part of the bathroom she robbed and disrobed in the shower itself. In the privacy of her own room if she ever had to change she hung a sheet over the mirror of the vanity. All of her nightgowns had high necks and long sleeves reminiscent of early Victorian era. Tony bought them for her. After her first night home when the sight of her body in the mirror drove her to screams and tears. He had seen her body as he helped into the shower and he understood. The very next day he came home with bags of long pants, long sleeved shirts, nightgowns and practical, plain underclothes, all in her size. She silently took the offered cloths knowing that he understood. Or understood as well as anyone possibly could.

Still staring at her body she brought up the foggy memories from the day she was rescued. She remembered with perfect clarity when her hood came off and she saw Tony's face staring back at her. She almost laughed out loud. She finally went mad and now saw things that couldn't possibly there. She turned her back on NCIS, they would not look for her. But it felt so real. She finally realized the truth as they pulled her from the camp and into a waiting helicopter. She fainted than, out of exhaustion, out of shook, out of relief. She remembered waking up later to strange doctors touching her. Trying to clean her diced skin. She screamed at them, fought them because she had just been rescued. Men couldn't touch her like that anymore. She didn't see doctors, she saw Saleem and his men coming for her again. Gibbs allowed the doctors to give her a mild sedative to clean the most serious of her wounds. She didn't remember much of this as she fell in and out of her drug induced haze. She must have passed out again because her next memory is of arriving at NCIS and hearing them clap for her. Tony ushered her down to Ducky, turning his head as the old doctor examined her. Ducky used another mild sedative and local anastiesha to clean and sew the largest gashes on her upper body.

She traced the scars on her front. The one across her breast first, than a long burn scar on the inside of her thigh where a lighter was held up and down the inside of her leg inching closer and closer to her center until she began to scream. Most of the scars she couldn't remember when she received them.

Three months she had been trapped in that hell. For three months now she had been rescued.

As her eyes drifted over her naked body she counted the scars. There were too many. Too many marks written on her body, telling their own horrible story. She lifted her arms above her head. The doctor only gave her the all clear to eat full meals a few weeks earlier. She could still count each of her ribs. Her skin stretched tight against the bones. Her collar bones stuck out like hard knobs her shoulder's like grotesque balls. Even thought she hated her reflection now she couldn't turn away. She forced herself to face herself. Stare down her demons. Maybe it would help. Maybe not but it was time for her to try. Time to start actively healing.

She heard the door of the apartment open. Tony came home. In her mind she saw him ladled down with groceries fighting his way through the door. She knew he would be subconsciously looking for her. she could feel him watching her often. Across the table when they ate, while she sat at her desk at the office. Even when she was in interrogation she knew he watched her. A part of her thought it should make her feel uncomfortable, after what those men did to her in Africa. But it didn't. She felt safe under his gaze. Often she would raise her eyes to stare back at him. He would flash her a small smile and then duck his head. Not at all ashamed to be caught. He watched her to see that she was ok, or at least able to cope in the situation at hand. He watched her to assure himself that she did indeed sit across from him, that she was there back in DC.

Ziva heard a crash and Tony's voice swear softly. She shrugged on her robe that Tony bought her. Someday she would show a man her scars. Maybe even her partner. But before she could do that she had to heal on her own. She wasn't even close, only taking one of the first steps today. Tonight she would still wake up screaming, Tony would come into her room and comfort her any way he could. She wasn't ok yet, not today. But someday.


	3. Tony

**a/n so here is Tony's chapter. I like how it turned out. Next up is Tony's one shot. I have an idea what I plan to do for him but feel free to leave ideas. after that I'm not sure what I plan to do. maybe Abby or Gibbs. I think Abby though.**

One- He never hated his father. Despite the many reasons Anthony DiNozzo Sr. gave him he never hated him. Maybe there was a time, way back in the beginning, right after his mother died, or in the middle when he was shipped from boarding school to boarding school. The first time his father gave him a reason to hate Anthony DiNozzo Sr. was when Tony was a scared little boy who just lost his mommy. He barely knew his busy father at the time. His father was just a man that came late to dinner and missed his games. A man that sometimes made his mommy cry when he missed a special surprise dinner she made all by herself. Anthony DiNozzo Sr. was also the man that brought him mommy pretty necklaces to make her smile. Who kissed her when he came home. Tony knew that his father loved his mommy and that his mommy loved his father but he didn't really know who his father was. He just knew that the man standing by him in an expensive black suit was hurting just as much as he was. So all through the wake and all through the funeral he held his father's hand. In his little boy's mind he loved his father because that's what he was supposed to do and he assumed that his father loved him. But Anthony DiNozzo Sr. was never his daddy, just his father. The whole time he held his father's hand, gripping it with the desperation of a sad and scared little boy, his father held his limp, separating himself from the connection his son tried to make. Anthony DiNozzo Sr. didn't speak to his son for the first week after his wife died. Tony maybe hated him a little bit than. But an eight year old little boy doesn't really know what hate is. Doesn't know the raging emotion tearing inside him and slowly destroying him. A little boy of eight doesn't know hate.

But a young man of seventeen does. Tony may not have ever truly hated his father but he never lacked for reasons to hate him. His childhood ended the day his mother died. The next nine years were a blur of boarding school, military schools and even a school for troubled boys once and summer vacations were something he had to tolerate and nothing else. His father developed a drinking problem and occasionally became an angry, belligerent drunk. He hit Tony sometimes. But Tony still forgave him. Given enough time he could always forgive his father. Because even as an angry seventeen year old teenager he could remember the brief moment during his mother's funeral where he tucked his small soft hand into his father's and his father squeezed his hand back. Tony had looked up into his father's face and watched the twin tracks of tears fall. He knew his father missed his mother as much as Tony himself did. He also remembered one day when he had come home from playing in the park with his nanny, a bigger boy had pushed him, causing him to fall and scrape his knee. He cried in his mother's arms and told her what a mean boy the other child was. His mother looked at him and told him to forgive the older boy because someone had probably pushed him before and he just didn't know how to act. His mother told him to always forgive people because not forgiving them would eat him up inside and spit him back out. So he forgave his father. After every blow he forgave him. But he didn't ever forget what Anthony DiNozzo Sr. made his childhood into. And even though he forgave his father, sometimes he still got mad.

Two—Tony loved the piano. His mother started to teach him when he was just five years old, smiling proudly when he managed to clumsily plunk out the notes to Row Row Row Your Boat for the first time. Even after she died he continued to practice. At first his father forbade the playing of the piano in the house. But Tony would sneak into the large piano room where his mother's grand piano sat slowly gathering a layer of dust because even the maid was forbidden to dust in there. Every morning after his father left for his office he went to the piano room and he would just play for as long as he felt like. At first it was only for twenty minutes. An eternity for a boy his age. After he was sent to the first boarding school he was able to take more classes. His teacher called him gifted. He shrugged it off as meaningless and empty compliments. He played because his mother loved to play. When she was alive his house was always filled with music. He remembered her patiently showing him how to read music or master a more difficult piece and how close they had been. Those memories kept him returning to the piano bench all through his teenage and adult years.

Three—He majored in Phy Ed because honestly he had no clue what he wanted to do with his life. He started playing sports after he snuck into his father's home office and saw a picture of his father in a football uniform with a bunch of friends. A shrink might say sports were a subconscious way of trying to earn his father's love. Maybe it was that way in the beginning but not in later life. He loved sports, loved the feel of a ball or a bat or a rugby stick or any equipment even kind of related to sports. That didn't mean he wanted to be a teacher. He figured it was an easy major and something would come along. It always did. Hell he didn't even think about becoming a cop ever until the night the bar he sometimes worked at was held up. He had been closing for the night and let the bar girl go home early, he knew she had a kid. He told her he could finish; she mentioned her kid was sick earlier that night. He just locked the door when the thug came at him. He reacted on instincts, using a handy two by four to knock him out cold. He called the cops. When they came he was able to give a complete and detailed account of what happened. One of the detectives' the force had sent out asked if he was studying law enforcement. Tony laughed and said no. But the idea settled into his brain. It wiggled at him trying to be heard as often as possible. Finally he listened to it and talked to one of the guys over at the police academy. It seemed like a good idea so he applied. He never expected to be accepted. He thought it was a gander, a lark that would quickly pass. But then he got a letter from the academy, they accepted him. He sat with the letter for hours it seemed but eventually he decided he wanted it. It gave his life some purpose. He needed that in his life.

Four- But just being a cop wasn't enough. So he worked until he became a detective. He worked vice in Peoria, organized crime in Philidelphia and homicide in Baltimore. He never stayed longer than two years in anyone place. He developed and itch in his foot that never seemed to completely disappear. Even before he found out his partner was crooked Tony thought about where he'd move on to next. Then he met Gibbs. The man impressed him, it was nearly impossible to be unimpressed by the ex marine. He never questioned how Gibbs knew where to find him that night. With him he brought a bottle of bourbon and real cups. It was the first and last time he shared bourbon with Gibbs in anything but an old mayson jar or coffee mug or anywhere but in an old basement smelling of pine wood and saw dust. He got pissed faced drunk and bitched like a high school girl on her period. He woke up the next morning in his bed, a glass of water and a large pile of aspirin by his bedside table and a silver haired man with a job offer in his living room. He figured it was just another itch to get out of his system, besides it came at the perfect time. Two years at NCIS and if the itch came back it he could always switch again. But one year turned to two, two to three, three to even more. He managed to find his niche at NCIS.

Five- Part of finding that niche included the forensic scientist Abby. Bubbly, energetic she reminded Tony of his idea of a perfect little sister. Although the word little wasn't exactly right. In her chunky platform boots her head almost reached the top of his and her bone crushing hugs reminded him he needed to go to the gym more. When he was first introduced to the perky Goth he was taken back. As he described her to Saleem she was "a paradox wrapped in an oxymoron smothered in contradictions in terms. Sleeps in a coffin. Really, the happiest goth you'll ever meet." Abby in general took to new people fairly easily, minus Ziva but she had her own reasons for this. She took to Tony even quicker than most. Of course he did bring her a Caff-Pow when they first met so that might explain part of it. She shared his love of movies although not to the quite extent.

Everyone at NCIS knew of the pair's sibling like relationship. They teased each other without mercy, comforted each other and had the others six. What most didn't know is after Tony's first case at NCIS the pair went to have drinks. One drink turned into two and two in to three and three in to more. The night ended with them back at Abby's apartment where Tony took the opportunity to find each and every one of her tattoos. The next morning Tony woke up in a double sized coffin next to a very bedraggled scientist with a hangover. Nursing his sore head and rolling stomach Tony stumbled to her kitchen after finding his boxers and made his fool proof college hangover cure. Two raw eggs, a cup of milk, fresh fruit, and some protein powder he managed to find shoved in the very back of a cupboard- left over from an old boy friend he assumed- and other various odds and ends he found in the kitchen. He gulped the disgusting concoction down with two aspirin and began to feel better instantly. He was in the process of making a second one when the Goth came into the room wrapped in her sheet and clutching her head. She blindly accepted the shake from Tony and almost puked when she drank it down in one gulp. Shoving Tony out of the small room she began to cook a real breakfast. Tony quickly showered and put on yesterdays suit. This was not the first time he ended up in a co-workers bed (or a co-worker in his bed), nor was it the first time he ended up in a friends bed. But this was Abby. For one of the few time in his sexual career he wasn't sure how to act. Abby made it easy for him. She acted like nothing strange happened. That Tony just stopped by for breakfast and not that they didn't have great sex the night before. It wouldn't be the last time they ended up taking each other home. Not until Tim came to the office. As soon as Tony saw the computer geek act around the beautiful scientist he just smiled. He didn't take her home once after that. After all, Tony and Abby? They were like siblings. Tony knew eventually the two nerds would pull their acts together. **(a/n this is the first and most likely last time I'll put a note in the middle of a story. But I quick wanted to explain where this part came from. An ex of mine and I act almost exactly like Tony and Abby do. After we dated for a short time we continued to hook up for about a year until he met his new girlfriend. He acts like my big brother now and most of our friends have no idea how long we ended up continuing our physical relationship after we ended our romantic one. It just seemed to fit these two characters to me.)**

Six- Even though he never hated his father for his childhood, he almost, almost hated Gibbs for leaving. He had only ever known his father as this absent man, negligent at best- a bully at worst. Gibbs was different. Tony knew Gibbs. Knew the gruff man who morphed into a father like figure better than the man who gave him half is DNA. And he just left. Left Tony in the middle of a shit situation with him scrambling to pull the team together. To make them work like they had. And somehow he managed to do it. Sometimes Tony wondered if Gibbs had know before the explosion what would happen if he ever left. Tony thought that maybe the ex-marine left when he did as a way to push Tony ahead. That his leaving was his own way to say he had faith in his senior field agent. But Tony always convinced himself that those thoughts were just him trying to make himself feel better about it.

Seeing how the rest of the team took it and having to remain strong nearly killed him. For over a week Ziva looked half pissed, half broken. That look on her face alone, so subtle that only he noticed, made him angrier at Gibbs than anything else. Well that and Tim's looking like a puppy whose master kicked and abandoned. That look sucked to. So did Abby's, she wore her heart on her sleeve, looking lost and like a sad little girl. That look really sucked. They all had thought of Gibbs as their glue. After all in no universe would anyone think that the MIT computer geek, OSU jock and Mossad killer would ever from a kick ass team. The ex marine is what held them together, made them stick. And suddenly he was gone and Tony had to step into a job he wasn't sure he was ready for.

And you know what? He did a damn good job about it. And than Gibbs came back. Poof, Ziva went to Gibbs, not Tony. That hurt to a bit to. But you know what? Tony didn't really mind to much, because Gibbs was back. Their team was right again. It was just a _little_ hard to work for him again after being in charge.

Seven- Even if it was a bit difficult to work for Gibbs again Tony really never wanted to go to Spain. He had much too much unfinished business here in DC. With Gibbs, because no matter how you cut it the marine left and that hurt, with Tim, the slightly younger and much smarter agent wasn't ready to be senior field agent for Gibbs and Tony had to watch out for the Probie. And then there was Ziva. Tony didn't know what his unfinished business with her was, or if they would ever finish it but Tony didn't want to leave until he tried.

Eight- His undercover romance also hurt. Perhaps more than Gibbs leaving. But he couldn't help but think that he always knew how that would end. No he didn't expect to fall in love with her but once he did he knew it was doomed to fail. Didn't make it suck less but he couldn't pretend to be surprised. He didn't think a relationship could ever be salvaged after all those lies, so he told one more. He told her it all had been a lie. That he never loved her. If he told her the truth, that he loved her- or at least thought he did- they would have tried to make it work and it never could have. When he told her he couldn't help but look over the brunettes head and meet the eyes of his ninja partner. She gave him a small nod that told him he was doing the right thing. That nod is what gave him the courage to make the woman he loved- or at least something really damn close to loved- hate him. Because if she hated him she could heal. It still wasn't easy to do though.

Nine- If those things hurt him, loosing Ziva damn near killed him. Finding out that she was dead was the worst thing that ever happened to him. Right after she left he didn't try to reach her. He thought that if he gave her space she'd come back, he almost didn't care if she never spoke to him again as long as she came back. Then he became worried. It was one thing she hadn't contacted him, he killed her lover. Sure it was self defense but didn't change the fact that Michael was dead because of Tony. But surely she would have called Abby? or emailed McGee? or something? So the team had a new purpose, find Ziva. It became their mission. Something to hold their focus. Find Ziva. Than they were given the news she was dead. Gone. It broke Tony in a way that nothing else in his life ever had. He tried to move on. Even bought some books on how to cope with grief. He watched every kind of movie he had to try and feel normal, tried to keep going through the motions. Nothing worked. So he formed a new plan. Revenge.

Everything his mother said about revenge and anger and hatred eating him up inside went out the window. He knew if he didn't do something, stopped the terrorists or anything really, but if he didn't do something it would kill him. He knew that doing something would most likely kill him anyway but he didn't care. He couldn't get the sight of Ziva looking so broken on the tarmac in Israel that day out of his head. It was his fault that the subtle expressions of her face contorted that way. He had to do something to make it right.

So again he began to plan. To plot to think how he could make some sense out of this chaos. Somehow make all of this wrong right. Gibbs understood. Gibbs knew Tony better than anyone except for maybe his lost partner. Gibbs saw himself in the younger man. The pain written so clearly on Tony's face mirrored how his face looked when he heard about his wife and daughter. It's a pain that never goes away. It stays with a man. Tim understood to. Ziva was as much of a sister to him as his own sister was. And when the younger agent looked at Tony he saw the love Tony had for Ziva. After all it was the same love he had for Abby. So they plotted. Discovered the camp, made the plans. Tony didn't know if he would make it out alive. In all honesty he wasn't sure he cared. All he cared about was taking down Saleem and making sure McGee made it out alive. Anything after that would just be a bonus.

Ten-If all of those things nearly killed him seeing Ziva again made him think they had. There couldn't be a way for her to still be alive and them to not know about it. They had unturned every stone, looked at every skeleton in every closet. The only way Ziva could be alive in this situation would be the drugs Saleem pumped into him made him hulliconate. But they didn't. Yes they did make him want to talk more than usual but also talking was their only hope. As long as he talked McGee could be rescued and Saleem killed. Those were the only things that mattered anymore.

But then he saw her sitting in front of him. Now he had to save her to. His own life didn't matter nearly as much as his two friends, as his family. But his life became a small priority now. If it came to the choice- him or them- he would choose them every time. But now he had more time. More time to explore the what ever the hell he and Ziva were. But he could only do that if he survived. They were more important though. Always would be.

Somehow they all made it out alive. He thanked the God he wasn't even sure he believed in every day for that.

When they realized Ziva had no place to say it was never a question where she would go. Tony couldn't see her going anywhere else. She would come home with him. Where he could protect her, keep her safe. Where he could watch her, assure himself that she was really there. That first night he didn't sleep in that chair just because he knew the nightmares would come but also so he could see her. Tell himself that it was more than just a dream.

The nightmares could have possibly been just as hard on him as on her. Because while she lived it again he relived being helpless every single time. He became so atuned to them he often was able to run in and wake her before they got to bad. But not every time. Every time he saw her screaming in pain, her entire body contorted from the memories he felt a knife stab him in the heart. Because this was his fault. All because he killed Rivkin.

When Ziva moved out it hurt a bit. Wasn't the system they had good enough? But he understood to. This was Ziva. She had to know she still was. Besides what he told her six months ago in that terrorist camp was true. He couldn't live without her. Couldn't see a world with out her in it. Now that he had a second chance he was going to take it. No matter how long it took. So he let her leave. Let her assure herself that she was still a strong independent ninja. Because he knew one day he'd have his chance. And he wasn't gonna mess it up again.


End file.
